I guess we all use particular endearments to those we love,, and they might change over time. What I called my children when they were babies was , for the most part, different from what I called them once they were toddlers, and now the words I use are different again. What I call my husband has also changed, but to a lesser extent, i won’t share what silly things I say, I don’t want to embarrass him! My characters use endearments too, and I’m very careful to make-sure that what they say matches their age and the sort of person they are. Rudi in ‘The Stalking of Rosa Czekov’, calls Tyche ‘sweetness’ and ‘darlin” but he doesn’t call his wife that!
I was trying to find an endearment which one of my characters could use, which would be right for the sort of man he is, and also something different from what he calls other people… because endearments can be very personal to a special someone in a relationship. There are the all-purpose ones which might be used to strangers, ‘dear’, ‘dearie’, ‘my dear’, ‘blossom’, ‘duck/ducks’, ‘chuck’, ‘darling’, ‘sweetheart’… and down in the West Country of course, ‘my handsome’!
I was doing a little research and came across these obsolete and rather sweet terms:
il: not every beloved is likely to relish being likened to a bat or a pig’s eye.
- cinnamon
- pigsney
- flitter-mouse
- honey-sop
- ding-ding
- turtle
I think they are rather nice – even though a flitter-mouse is a bat, and a honey-sop is bread dipped in honey, and a turtle refers to a turtle dove.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/02/six-obsolete-endearments/
I also came across another lit, some of them very strange, from which I made a short selection of ones I might use at some point with some character:
- angel
- apricot
- blossom
- bunny
- buttercup
- button
- honey-pie
- honey
- kitten
- peaches
- pumpkin
- sparkles
- sugar-smacks
- sweet-cheeks
- sweetkins
- teddy
- tootles
- tootsie
- twinkles
Now, for the moment, what would my character Thomas say? Hmmm, I must think about this!
Lois Elsden 